


hope, and an anchor

by fluffysfics



Series: punk rock never dies, and neither does the Master [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Attempts at historical accuracy, F/M, Gen, Vague Shipping, another What The Master Did On Earth fic, punk culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:40:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23383198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluffysfics/pseuds/fluffysfics
Summary: Earth is depressing. The Master is bored, and roaming the streets of London in search of trouble. As usual, trouble finds him- but not in any way he could have expected.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: punk rock never dies, and neither does the Master [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1696336
Comments: 11
Kudos: 77





	hope, and an anchor

**Author's Note:**

> consider this a spiritual successor to my fic ‘a study in anger’- no requirement to read that one to understand this, but this was definitely inspired by that fic

It was raining. It was _July_ , and it was raining. A proper downpour, too- fat raindrops that pounded the back of the Master’s head and stuck his t-shirt right to his skin. Earth really did have shitty weather, or perhaps that was just England. Maybe even just London- it was a miserable city, through and through. 34 years of imprisonment spent mostly here, and another 43 to go, providing the Doctor showed up on schedule. 

Not even halfway through, and he already felt like hurling himself off a tall building. At least a regeneration in public might get him captured by the army, or UNIT, or Torchwood, and then he’d have something proper to escape from. It had been at least six months since the last time he’d gotten arrested, and frankly, the Master was fed up with pulling prison breaks on petty little city jails. 

In all honesty, he was fed up with everything. 

Which was why he was outside in the rain at 10pm, skulking through the streets of Islington in the hopes of finding a nice bar fight to insert himself into. Beating up a few humans would be a good buzz, and hey, if he got the shit kicked out of him in the process, at least the pain would be something to _feel_. 

This was far from the first time he’d done this- he was barred from several pubs in other parts of London, under various fake names. Islington was new ground, and the location of the new flat he currently wasn’t paying rent on. The landlord had come round to threaten him about that the other day; the Master had let the man shove him into the doorframe a couple times before hypnotising him into leaving. With no TARDIS and no TCE, that was one of the few tricks he still had left up his sleeve. 

Tonight, despite everything, despite humans being the messy, rowdy animals that they were, despite the shitty weather that was certainly putting _him_ in a bad mood, the Master couldn't find a single bar fight. There was always the option of starting one, of course, but he’d possibly never been _less_ in the mood for talking to humans. Even just to insult them until they punched him. 

Looked like it was going to be another long night of staring at shitty TV, or maybe just at the ceiling if he couldn’t be bothered to turn it on. The Master pressed his eyes shut, tipping his head back and letting the rain fall onto his face. Maybe if he stood here long enough, he could pretend he was drowning. Maybe he could-

“Oi, mate! Girlfriend dump you? Ya look miserable as shit!”

He snapped his eyes back open, whirling around to see who had shouted. He spotted a woman with a cigarette dangling from her fingertips standing under the overhanging roof of a bar, dressed in a leather jacket and tights that were more hole than fabric. A little more interesting than the usual human fashion, but _still_. The Master scowled at her, fully intending to stalk off back down the street without saying a word. 

“Aw, don’t give me that look. You look fuckin’ freezing, come over here. Y’can have the rest of my drink.” 

He stopped. Human alcohol would hardly do much for him, but it would be _something_. And if some silly woman was going to give it to him for free, why say no? 

Letting out a sigh, the Master paced over to the bar, ducking under the overhang. The woman pressed a half-empty bottle of beer into his hand. There were lipstick stains on the edge of it, but he didn’t much care. A drink was a drink. 

“What happened to you, darlin’?” She nudged his shoulder, and the Master noticed that her jacket was decorated with sharp silver spikes. Hm. That was certainly one way of maintaining personal space. 

“Girlfriend dumped me, like you said.” He put the bottle to his lips, draining most of the contents in a few long swigs. “Took all my shit, left me to fend for myself.” Not too far from the truth, really. 

“Aw, and you’re so cute. If I didn’t have my own girlfriend, I’d take ya home. Show you that you can do better than her.” She took a drag on her cigarette. The Master frowned. Humans weren’t usually that open about their sexuality in this time period. He’d either found himself in the company of someone incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid. 

“She’ll come back to me eventually,” he said, and then grimaced, because that sounded pathetic. 

“Sure she will. What’s yer name, darlin’? Mine’s Tasha.”

“Harry,” he said, the fake name coming almost automatically. A classic, but a reliable one. He hated how he didn’t have to stop himself from telling people his title these days. Back in the forties and fifties, he’d always had to bite his tongue, swallow back the words ‘I am the Master’ and replace them with some human nonsense instead. Some time in the last twenty years, he’d gotten used to being Harry, or whatever other name happened to come to mind first. 

“Well, Harry, ya look like shit.” Tasha grinned cheerfully at him. Her hair was blonde, and if not for the pink and blue streaks in it, the hair and the grin would almost remind him of the Doctor. “Got far to walk home?”

“Um.” Good question, actually. He’d just been walking, staring at the ground, without paying much attention to where his feet were taking him. “About half an hour, I think. Where are we?”

Tasha laughed, loud and shrill. “The Hope and Anchor pub. Islington. London.”

“I know we’re in _Islington_ ,” he snapped. Tasha just laughed at him again. The Master downed the last of his beer, and strongly considered hitting her over the head with the bottle just for laughing. But she’d been nice to him, so he abandoned that plan and hurled the empty bottle against the wall opposite. It shattered into hundreds of brown glass shards, pieces skittering across the road and sparkling in the dim light of the streetlamps. 

“Ya got some anger to work out, huh? You should go in there.” She jerked her head towards the bar, and for the first time, the Master bothered to listen to the sounds coming from inside. Loud human chatter, like always, but also- music, live music. A woman half-singing, half- _yelling_ something he couldn’t quite make out, and electric guitars doing things that he hadn’t heard guitars do in years. Not since he’d been stranded on Earth. Oh. New music. _Angry_ music. 

“Tash? Who’s this?” He turned around to see another woman, dressed much like Tasha, but with short, spiked black hair, emerging from the bar. 

“Hey, May. This is my new boyfriend, Harry.” Tasha grinned, one hand clutching his arm tightly. The Master just about managed not to yank his arm away in disgust. 

“He looks like a drowned rat. C’mon, babe, put him down, we have to go home.” The other woman- May- walked up and took Tasha’s hand, pressing a kiss to her lips that the Master recognised instantly as _possessive_. 

“Duty calls, darlin’. Really though, go inside. Ya might like it.” Tasha kissed him on the cheek, and then her girlfriend tugged her away with a roll of her eyes. 

The Master watched them walk off, and tried not to be reminded of his Academy days. Of getting jealous whenever someone paid attention to _his_ Theta, of kissing him just like May had done to Tasha, to make it well-known exactly who he belonged to. 

He leaned back against the wall of the pub, feeling it vibrate faintly in time with the music inside. Maybe he’d find a bar fight in there. If everyone was as... _different_ as those two women, he could probably find someone willing to fight him. It was worth a shot. 

The Master peeled himself away from the wall, wrung some of the rainwater out of his hair, and made his way down to the basement of the Hope and Anchor bar. 

-

He didn’t get into a fight that night. Instead, the Master got back to his flat at three in the morning, and slept better than he had in 34 years of life on Earth. 

It took less than a week for him to learn in great detail what ‘punk’ was and buy a leather jacket of his own, and less than a month for him to swallow down the shame of liking the company of humans and admit to himself that he _enjoyed_ the angry concerts, the dancing that hardly counted as dancing, the camaraderie of screaming into the air and having people scream with him.

It was therapeutic, and whilst it hardly made his situation any better, it at least made him feel like he wasn’t so completely alone. Earth was still shit, he would maintain that until the day he died. But for a few years, a few years that were more precious to him than he would ever admit to _anyone_ , the Master found himself part of a...a _community_ , a group of people just as angry at the world as he’d been feeling since this regeneration had come into existence, and that made it all just a little bit more bearable. 

**Author's Note:**

> the hope & anchor bar is in fact real, and in 1977- the year this fic is set- it became one of the hotspots for London’s new punk scene. it also has the PERFECT name for a fic like this, so I had to use it :D comments very much appreciated!


End file.
